


who knew?

by 13letters



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BwB, F/M, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Love Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 15:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4570206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13letters/pseuds/13letters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was staring at her like he was in shock, in wonder, and she noticed the scars in the flicker of the phone lights around them first, but that was before she saw his grin. Bright and wide and definitely smirking. She felt her cheeks start to ache from grinning back sheepishly, clicked her heels together like she hadn't just screamed in encouragement of nudity and lewdity, and who knew?</p>
            </blockquote>





	who knew?

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the P!nk song. It gets angsty, but it does have a happy ending! I think? I normally don't write Sansan or ship Sansan, but something about this. I had to. It was written in about an hour and a half, so be nice. I hope you all enjoy it!

*

 

He had to get out. He had to leave.

Everyone said he would, anyways.

 

*

 

"What the hell you doin' here, girl?"

She pushed back her red hair with a quiet, (im)patient huff, glanced down to her pastel pink pants, her floral top, her strappy shoes. She looked utterly out of place here, and she knew it -- the only pink worn to BwB concerts was usually someone's brightly colored hair or brightly mismatched eyeshadow. Like Arya, but she'd managed to disappear with her older, rough-looking boyfriend.

"Looking for someone," she lied, doing her best to glance over the shoulder of the tall man that stepped in front of her with a beer bottle in his hand, a cigarette between his teeth. But at least, it wasn't entirely a lie. Just no one expected her to like this punk-rock music, so secrets, secrets, the man was smirking at her, she thought, but she couldn't truly discertain since shadows were covering half his face.

"'Course you are," he gruffed out. Seconds passed.

"Well," she started awkwardly, "I'll just --"

"Not here." He took a strong hold of her arm and started leading her the opposite direction, away from all the leering guys that reeked of liquor and maybe potentially dishonorable intentions.

"Excuse me?"

"Don't need to be lookin' over there. Doubt you'll find anything."

"Well," she said again, and he did look like he was smirking this time. "If it's so bad, why were you over there?" She tried jerking her arm away, but he held fast.

"I'm not you."

A girl with a collar around her neck screamed when Anguy, the hot bass guitarist, lit his guitar on fire or something, something, they were missing them performing one of their new songs. And this man was still holding onto her arm. "You can let go of me."

He grunted and complied, tossed his cigarette off to the side and someone cursed at him.

"Thank you, but I really don't need to find anyone right now, I want to --"

"Now, ladies," the delicious voice of Tom purred from upstage. "Before our next song, we gotta hear those three magic words. Shout it loud, now!"

When most of the crowd screamed, Sansa couldn't resist. "Take it off!" she shrieked with the best of them, squealing with the other girls and guys as Anguy's shirt was ripped off with his hands.

The sound was deafening, the energy in the air tangible, and she seemed to remember the man that led her to the middle of the grassy audience clearing.

He was staring at her like he was in shock, in wonder, and she noticed the scars in the flicker of the phone lights around them first, but that was before she saw his grin. Bright and wide and definitely smirking. She felt her cheeks start to ache from grinning back sheepishly, clicked her heels together like she hadn't just screamed in encouragement of nudity and lewdity, and who knew?

 

*

 

He had to get out. He had to leave.

They all said he'd leave anyways.

The floorboards are cold, and he has to blindly scramble around to find his boxers, his shirt, anything.

He just doesn't want to look at her sweet-smiling face in sleep, her red hair strewn over his pillow, drool fucking adorably stuck to the corner of her mouth. She deserves so much better than a cheap apartment, browning water in the tap, a beat-up truck with old BwB and Billy Idol cd's, hers and his.

He reaches for a cigarette, goes to the tiny window, lets the nightlife pour its faint light into their bedroom.

 

*

 

"How'd you get my number anyways, little bird?"

"Why do you keep calling me little bird?"

"What would you rather I call you?" The left corner of his mouth twitched in a smile, not that she saw, leaning into his side and almost onto his lap as he drove them around the midnight city.

"What about dove?" she suggested. She playfully swatted at him when he groaned. "What? It's so old-fashioned. Or dame? That'd be sweet."

"Babe," he said, and she had to keep her lips from parting at the deep tone of his voice.

"Moving a little fast, aren't we?"

"Nah," but he knew he was way in over his head already, had been since he saw her mouthing every line at that bloody concert, listened to her talk most of that night since she was waiting for her sister to reappear. It'd taken four hours and thirty-nine minutes, and he knew he was fucked. "Don't think you'd want to take me home, though," he said like he was teasing, though his constant scowl was more truth.

 

*

 

Because they all said he'd leave, that he'd never stay, that men like him didn't pine after nice, sweet girls like her unless they wanted something else, right?

He swears under his breath, exhales smoke to the city, hears her murmur something in her slumber. He almost feels guilty.

 

*

 

"You're not meeting my family. Don't ask again," he snapped.

She flinched, her hand jerking away from his but she didn't let go. "I'm sorry," because she always apologized. Fucking always does.

"Don't say that."

"But I'm --"

"Shut up," he hissed, but she knew The Hound, like they'd called him when she asked them that night months ago at the concert, was all bark, no bite when it came to her. Like an enraged puppy, and she was smiling before she could help herself.

"Make me," she whispered, pressing closer, her breath at his ear.

"Sansa."

"Sandor," she said to match his exasperated tone, but there was a hitch in her breath, an arch to her back as his hand slid up her thigh, under her skirt, pushed her panties aside.

 

*

 

"Sandor?" she whispers in the still quiet of their room, sounding asleep still, sounding as small and childlike as she wasn't since she'd met him. But fear did that.

He looks back to her, the end of his cigarette a red light that was dim against the hollow of his throat, and his heart breaks when he sees her all sheet held over her chest, red hair sex-tousled.

"You're not going to try to leave again, are you?"

 

*

 

"Wait!" She laughed, damn near giggled hysterically, and he raised his eyes heavenward, prayed for his sanity.

"What is it?"

"Your jacket," she hummed, gesturing for him to shrug it off. "And your sunglasses!"

He reluctantly handed them over after shrugging off his worn leather jacket in the shit parking lot outside another concert. She mumbled something about wanting to blend in since she was wearing a plaid dress that flared out just above her knees, but he thought she just looked like she was his, and he could get used to that. Probably shouldn't, though. "Anything else?" he murmured dryly, coughing. "You look hot, dove."

"Yes," she said, like her cheeks weren't red. "For you," and she'd unclasped the golden cross necklace around her neck, reached up, always up, to clasp the latch closed around him. He wasn't breathing; something in him seemed so soft when he looked at her like that, like that's all life could be, and she kissed his fingers when he touched the golden cross. "We look cool, babe, don't we?"

She just wasn't a rocker yet, but she thinks she understands why Arya went for garage/bar-band Gendry and his ripped jeans, his biceps.

She thought she understood why everyone told her baby sister to not get attached to him, Gendry, too, but she understands moreso why she did, why they were together.

Sandor held his arm out to her like a gentleman (even though he rolled his eyes) because he knew she liked that instead of his hand in the backpocket of whatever she was wearing, and she took the crook of his elbow, bumped his hip with hers. "Do you think we're going to make it?"

"Make what?" he asked distractedly, scanning for an acceptable patch of grass to watch some new band on.

"Like," she began, suddenly nervous. When he looked to her knowing her gaze to the floor, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her-his too long jacket sleeve meant she's hesitant about whatever it is she'll die if she doesn't say, he made it much harder. "..Forever."

"Forever?"

"Together, I mean, like, as we --"

"Shit, Sansa." He stopped them between a couple making out on the lawn, a guy trying to drink from a keg.

Once upon a time she'd have bitten her lip and apologized, told him to nevermind it, but that was before she dated Sandor Clegane and grew the backbone her daddy said he was proud of her for having. "You don't think so?"

"No," he said, shaking his head when she starts to frown. "I do, but no one knows what'll happen."

"Promise me anyways?"

"You'll know it's a lie, little bird," and he sounded so patronizing when he calls her that. Goddamn.

"Then we'll make it true. Tell me."

"Forever," he swore quietly. There's nothing he'd deny those blue giddy eyes all lit up like that, even if he's trying to not factor in money, her mama's disapproving stares, the few years he has older than Sansa. That she's Sansa Stark and he's a no one she met by chance. Except then he remembered it was him that stopped her in the first place when they met, so that had to be some fate watchin' out for him for once. "And ever."

"Good," she beamed, wrapping her arms under his and hugging him close, believing him.

He'd indulge her more often.

 

*

 

He can barely see her face in the dark, but her voice says it all.

It says everything he doesn't want to hear, everything he's heard.

His cigarette's out the window before he realizes he's tossed it, and he hears his footfalls heavy as he moves back to their bed, the mattress dipping between his weight.

"No," he says, feeling her start to shake like she's crying now that his arms are around her. "No, baby," he whispers gruff like he always does, but she soothes in his arms like he's some charming man that isn't so hard to cuddle with harsh muscle and a rasping voice and a ruined face. She sighs watery into his neck, and he kisses the top of her head. "I can't."

 

*

 

"An infatuation? Mom! That's not what it is, for goodness' sake." Her fork clinked against her plate as she tried to calm her temper, to remind herself that patient rationale always does more than rage.

Or so she tells Sandor before he laughs at her, kisses her instead of telling her to shut up like he never means it.

"Sansa," Catelyn sighed, looking to Ned.

But Sansa just looked to Arya, to Rickon, to Robb, to Bran, to Jon, to Theon, because they knew, didn't they? How good of a man Sandor was. How kind-hearted he was beneath his evasive, gruff nature. How sweet he was for her, how much better he tried to be because of her.

No one jumped to neither mother or daughter's defense, though. Their eyes were on their plates, their ears open to the first real argument they've ever had.

"All I'm trying to say, dear." She used that coddling tone she always used on Arya. "Why don't you bring someone else to your Aunt Lysa's wedding? But about that nice young man, Harry? I liked him."

"Mom." And she desperately wanted her mom to look at her and see the look she herself felt years young ago when she was pining in love with Ned. "I can't bring someone else as a date when I have a boyfriend. A boyfriend I might be engaged to soon," she added quietly.

Arya's the only one that heard, though, and they've come along way as sisters, haven't they? She was so supportive, singing Sandor's praises just to curse his name to the ground that first time he disappeared.

"Then aren't you better without him?" she had said, just trying to be helpful. She couldn't blame her, really. "Maybe you're lucky if the future would just be like this."

But it wouldn't. She knew. She realized her hands were shaped into poorly-formed fists.

 

*

 

"Were you thinking about it?" she murmurs into his bare chest, her breaths hot but relaxed since he's soothingly running his callused fingers through her hair.

He can't lie to her.

"Yes," he says quietly, because he's thought of leaving before. When people tell him he's good-for-nothing, that he'll end up just like his brother, that he's not good enough for the woman in his bed when she's the one that showed up with a suitcase and a toothbrush and most of her family, extended included, for a housewarming party he didn't want. He didn't even know she was planning on moving in then.

"It wouldn't make it any better," she says almost petulantly, and he feels that all too familiar lick of need for nicotine on his tongue, but it's nothing next to the feel of her in his arms, sprawled across his lap, her lips at his collarbone like when she'd smiled the first time he'd told her yeah, he'd be around after that concert.

What happened to them?

"I know," he whispers, tightening his arms at her back. "I'm a fool."

But just for her, and she knows it, but they've been here before, but he was too stuck on her to ever leave again. She knew. "You are," she smiles. "Tell me that you love me."

"You know I do, Sansa," because there's a thrift store ring on her finger, his teeth marks on her neck, beer and tea in the fridge, chick flicks and rom-coms next to their TV with the rest of their accumulated posessions together in these three years they've stayed together.

"Then say it."

And he does, and how could he ever leave this?

He can't.

 

*


End file.
